Columbia Presents Horwitz Prize to Three Scientists for Cancer Discoveries

Columbia University presented the 2019 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize to three scientists for their contributions to cancer research in a ceremony on Jan. 9 in Low Library. The recipients of the prize were announced last September.

Until the end of the 20th century, most cancer therapies worked by attacking replicating cells, an approach that devastated nearly as many normal cells as malignant ones. Discoveries of the processes that control the growth, division, and spread of cancer cells, and the signals that cause these cells to die naturally, gave rise to a new era of targeted therapies—drugs that focus on specific molecular targets associated only with cancer cells.

Among these discoveries was the finding that most cancers share a common thread: disruptions in phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3Ks), a family of signaling enzymes involved in maintaining a host of core cellular functions, including cell growth, differentiation, and proliferation.

Thanks to this insight, several anti-PI3K drugs have been approved for the treatment of some lymphomas, leukemias, and breast cancers, and many others are in various stages of development, including many in late-stage clinical trials.